Growing Pains
by Ashy
Summary: 5xSP - Wufei ponders on growing up and how this will affect his relationship with his Preventer partner. Sally has other ideas...


Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of the characters. Nuff said.  
  
Authors note: Well....uh...this is just a shortish fic I wrote alongside the numerous other longer ones I'm working on. All from Wufei's P.O.V and please be kind because I can't exactly climb into his mind and see what he really thinks, I can only hope to guess ^^;; Oh yeah, he's not real...right....*sniffs*...so sorry if it's bad. Well anyway, I find I get confused with long plots when I'm writing them, so I try to work with the ordinary and this is just a normal evening in the Preventer offices and Wufei is doing a bit of life-evaluating as he works....or doesn't....  
  
*********  
  
Growing Pains  
  
by Ashy  
  
  
  
It's dark outside, getting late. I can see as I look through the office window amid the slight layer of grime from exposure to the air. The sky is almost black now and I notice the tiny shapes of stars far away, just visible beyond the gaps in the passing clouds. Sometimes I imagine I can see the individual colonies in space, I can almost make out their outline even though I'm only pretending. It's absurd really but gazing out there, I can picture my own colony in my mind's eye - my old home, my birthplace.  
  
I have no home at the present. The Preventers isn't my home. I was only planning on staying for a little while - just until I got back on my feet, sorted my head - then in typical style of the Solitary Dragon, I'd move on.  
  
But it's been at least three years since I made that airy decision. I haven't moved on, and what's more, I still feel as if I haven't taken control of my own life, as if there's things I still have to learn. I used to think a person learnt the most valuable things in combat, by fighting justly, by defeating enemies. Then by keeping a code of honour, staying true to their family line. And I do retain this view - but I can't help wondering if there's some aspect of life I just haven't grasped. It's that feeling as if whatever it is, is just within your reach, you can sense it, you know you yearn for it but you cannot see it. Like looking into space, really. Into the blackness.  
  
Over on the other side of the room, my Preventer partner, Sally Po, sits quietly tapping into her keyboard. I glance over at her and marvel privately at how efficiently she works, how she remains so undistracted. I am distracted, mainly by my own thoughts. It's not as if office work really interests me, but it's part of the job, I know that. Not all of it's like this, sometimes it's okay. On the days when I get a near-decent mission - not so often in these times of peace. On the days when I can loosen up, forget Sally's just a woman and I'm just some poor orphaned, widowered kid with no prospects, who she's so generously taken under her wing.  
  
Her eyes snap to mine and I realise with a slight chill that I'm supposed to be ignoring her. It sounds foolish, really, but I can't let her see me giving her any attention, be it a glare. Then she'd think I'd fallen weak, that I was actually sorry for what I'd said.  
  
It hadn't been anything too despicable - nothing worse than I'd have said to any other woman, to someone like Noin. I'm not going to even bring myself to remember what I grumbled at Sally this morning. Okay, it was one of my worser displays of character. I know I've upset her, but she's just going to have to deal with it, like she used to do. She knows she's a woman, or she should know if she's any sense - which she has - I'll freely admit. And she knows what Chang Wufei thinks of women. They're weak, face it, they are. Some are weaker than others, just like men but it doesn't alter nature's fact.  
  
I fix my eyes defiantly on my screen, arranging my face into the kind of inscrutable expression Sally used to love to try and fathom. I remember the days when she used to like to tease me a little. I'd call it flirting if it had been anyone else. She'd tug at my my hair in some womanly effort to be affectionate. Or patronising. I'm not sure which. If I made a disagreeable comment, she'd either brush it off or argue good-naturedly. Some of our best times were spent exchanging chidingly with each other.  
  
She doesn't do that anymore. Don't get me wrong, before today, she still remains kind to me but she spends less time in my company and more time talking privately with Noin, about Preventer Wind and whatever else women discuss. It's not that I'm really bothered, I'm just making an observation.  
  
I snatch a look at her again. Surprisingly, a bubble of frustration rises inside me, and I slam an index finger down hard on a key. Was Sally just pretending to be some strong woman whom no-one can dent, the kind of person who never loses their positive outlook? She should be true to her integrity, like I am. Although she admitted to me on the first occasion we met that she was weak. But I don't think she believed it. Not in her heart.  
  
Sally's interested in hearts. She used to say I had a good one. I doubt she'd still hold the view now. Maybe before she just said it out of sympathy, you know what women are like. I don't care much anyway. I please myself, I always have. I've never aided anyone much, in battle that is. I do remember Sally somehow craftily wangling me into the cockpit of my gundam Nataku. Ah, Nataku, I don't think of you much now, do I?  
  
Yes, I've helped Sally a few times - unwillingly, willingly, dutifully. I don't know which. And she's helped me in other ways. She got me this job for a start and the way she talks always manages to boost my self-assurance - well the way she used to talk, should I say. We don't talk much these days. It's not all my fault, I know sometimes I come off as brash. I don't mean it most of the time but Sally has been acting plain strange around me recently. It's as if she suddenly thinks I've changed into some other person.  
  
I haven't changed. Well yes, okay, I have physically maybe. The usual stuff, facial hair and all that, not that I'd ever let anyone witness it but the bathroom mirror. I've already gone through a few Preventer uniforms since I started. Sally's still got the same one. She told me women don't grow after age eighteen or something. I might have it wrong.  
  
It strikes me how just little I actually know about women. I know they can't fight in theory, but I don't know much else. I'm not interested either. Not really. Well maybe a bit. I can feel my cheeks flush slightly at the thoughts of what I've come to notice about women - about Sally - but I shake them away. It's not honourable.  
  
My computer beeps. I decide anything has got to be better than this brand of irritating silence. Her working, me thinking. I grit my teeth and utter the pride-withering words in a low tone: " I'm sorry."  
  
She doesn't answer. I don't bring myself to look at her face. She's probably got some smug expression on it right at this very moment, like she's won me over. I expect her to give some charming reply - "Looks like I've tamed the Dragon once again" - is her favourite. I haven't heard that in ages. Nothing. It irks me that she's being so cold. It's as if it's an unspoken rule that now I've reached my twenties, she can no longer excuse my flippant remarks. They seem to affect her more deeply than ever now. I feel angry and the muscles in my chest constrict. If she were male, I'd strike an annoyed blow at her. But she's a woman, so I won't.  
  
Man, why did I wind up working with a female? They're so...temperamental. Well I guess Sally isn't particularly highly-strung. Just at certain times...I've kind of noticed a pattern and being the sensible, studious person I am, I have written notes to myself of when to avoid her. I'd curl up and die a quick death if she ever found the piece of paper, though. It's hidden in my desk under my vast amounts of paperwork. Honestly - women, I wish I could fathom them.  
  
" Aren't you gonna answer me, Woman?" My words hang limply in the air.  
  
She coughs. That's it. That's her answer.  
  
" Are you listening to me, Woman?"  
  
She's making me feel pathetic, an idiot, as if I'm talking to myself. She's getting at me in the most effective way possible, by completely refusing to acknowledge my existence.  
  
" You're being petty, you know," I grate at her. " Treating me like a kid. I'm not, you know. You can't get your own way all the time, Sally. Not all the time."  
  
" Grow up, Wufei," she answers. It's an answer at least, though not the kind I was hoping for. " You might look like a grown man, fight like a one, but your general behaviour is so....childish."  
  
I frown and glare at her through knitted brows. Childish? How dare she?  
  
" I am a man, don't you dispute that!"  
  
" I'm not disputing that. I know you've had a lot to put up with, to try and grow up fast -"  
  
I cut her off. I hate it when she does that. Acts like she knows the timeline of my life's events or something. As if she can know the extent of the pain I've suffered.  
  
" Woman - I can be whatever man I want to become, if I try. You, on the other hand, can never be a man. You might like to pretend you are, fight like you are, you even LOOK like you are - but you're just a woman! And you always will be!"  
  
I've really done it this time. ' You moron, what did you say something like that for?!' I berate myself immediately after the venomous words have escaped my lips.  
  
I wait achingly for her witty comeback. An angry comeback. Any comeback. None. I've defeated her and it doesn't feel like I thought it would. It feels disgusting.  
  
I grip the edge of my desk and watch her face. She's not looking at me. I pay close attention to her clear blue eyes. She isn't crying but I can see them glistening in the glow of the computer screen. And then I see it, the most repulsive thing I've ever witnessed. Slowly, pools of water emerge from the rims of her eyes. A single tear trickles down her cheek, gaining speed, then plopping off her chin onto the hand which reaches to wipe it.  
  
Victory has never felt more sickening. I made Sally Po cry. I used to think no-one could, she's always been the sunny type, unaffected by insults and criticisms. But everyone has a weakness, I just feel bitterly ashamed that I had to be the one to unearth hers.  
  
She stands. I think she's probably going to make a move for the door. My mind races and I consider what she might do. Get a breath of fresh air perhaps - or tell Lady Une she no longer wishes to work alongside me. And the reality is, who could blame her?  
  
" Sally, stop."  
  
It's an order. I wait for her to glower in my direction and turn on her heel. She doesn't, she just stands there with her back to me, her head bowed. I can clearly see the bare flesh on the nape of her neck where her hair parts in two.  
  
I don't think she's crying, I can't be sure. I don't suppose she's sure either. Perhaps she feels humiliated that I was the one to see her crumble for a moment.  
  
" I....I didn't mean it, Sally, it just....um....came out wrong," I say in an attempt to justify myself. My voice sounds so shallow.  
  
" Wufei, there was no correct way for a comment like that to come out," she answers, her words shaking. " And what's more, I don't see what I could have possibly done to deserve the cruelty you give me of late."  
  
Cruelty? I've been a bit shirty with her, I'll admit that. Bad tempered, argumentative - but that's me - sometimes, a part of my character. She knew all this when she asked me to work with her. I've never considered she may think me cruel. And the old Sally, the Sally when I was younger never seemed to turn a blind eye to it - in fact I sensed it almost amused her. Again, I don't see what's changed apart from I'm almost a foot taller.  
  
" What's wrong with you?" I venture, be it a bit confrontationally.  
  
" I think that's rather obvious," she replies curtly.  
  
It's not obvious, though. There's more to this than meets the eye. It feels as if lately, my very existence puts her through so much torment. It doesn't make any sense to me. But I am sorry.  
  
" I apologise, Sally," I say earnestly. " I'm unaware of the extent of the trouble I've caused you, but I'm sorry, very sorry."  
  
My pride doesn't feel any more damaged than it is already, than hers must be. I watch her turn around to face me, and strive to keep her composure, but she can't.  
  
" I...I forgive you, Wufei, you could never understand this anyway," is her soft answer, accompanied by a sigh. I can see her bottom lip quivering and she brings her hands up to her face to hide herself from me. Something tightens in my throat. I caused this, I am responsible.  
  
I rise slowly from my seat and move cautiously over to where she is. I notice now, standing before her, just how much taller I am. She always used to appear so strong and elevated but now I can see her clearly for what she is. Gone are the days when I had to tilt my head slightly to see her face. I cast my vigilant gaze down upon her now. She seems almost fragile to me now, and vulnerable. A woman like any other. At this lingering moment, I feel an unfamiliar, yet overwhelming urge to protect her.  
  
Tentatively, I place an arm on her shoulder but she doesn't respond. I couldn't bear it if she hated me. In an act of desperation, I grasp her with both hands and pull her close against my chest. Her chin is on my shoulder now, my nose up close to her tawny hair. I wonder what else I should do - I've apologised - but she seems quite satisfied just for me to hold her.  
  
I'm trembling and for some unknown reason, my legs feel incapable of holding my body upright. I'm becoming increasingly weak and nauseous but at the same time, almost content. This is my partner, the woman I have always held some kind of uncommon respect for, despite how I may act. And I'm cradling her against me. I'm not sure I could become accustomed to this change.  
  
Nevertheless this human closeness, I realise, surpasses any security I might have found in Nataku. A lifeless machine, a soulless hunk of metal. I hold my breath for a second and I can feel the blood pounding in my ears, my heart hammering against my rib cage. But why? I don't quite know but I get the feeling this may be what I've been missing...  
  
" I didn't want to hurt you, Sally," I whisper gently into her hair. I feel her nod in acknowledgement and she grips my waist wearily. I hope she doesn't think I'm grovelling for her affection or something. I'm not, I'm just deeply ashamed of myself. My lack of constraint. I'm so near to her that I can smell the skin on the back of her neck. It's a nice, womanly scent. Unsure of why I am doing this, I press my lips against it. She shudders then shakes her head.  
  
" This...this doesn't mean anything to you, does it?" she replies, though it's more of a statement.  
  
What? What is she talking about? " I don't...I don't understand what you mean," I answer.  
  
She lets out a small, bitter laugh, muffled by my shoulder. " I didn't think you would."  
  
" Do you think I am unintelligent?" I ask, slightly insulted.  
  
She pauses. " No, it's just not part of your training, that's all. So you can't understand it."  
  
A woman knowing of something I don't? " I want to understand it," I whisper. " Teach me."  
  
Wordlessly, she removes her head from my shoulder, and grips my chin gently in one cool hand. I stare nervously at her, my eyes darting across her face, a chill creeping up my spinal chord. Her blue eyes are dancing with sudden amusement now, and I try to calculate her next move. I can't. I'm trapped. I'm afraid but I'm not too weak as to back out now. I think she knows this; " You want me to stop?"  
  
" You haven't started yet." I hope I sound sure of myself. I'm not. I'm dying of fear inside, though I guess my voice doesn't convey this. I screw my eyes tight shut and my whole body tenses.  
  
" All right." She pulls my chin forward, skilfully manoeuvring my lips onto hers. My heart does a somersault. A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead and I feel a prickling sensation down my back. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to act? This crafty woman has definitely thrown me in at the deep end this time. I must be growing up more in these seconds than I have in my whole lifetime of fighting.  
  
She's really milking this for all it's worth. I decide she must be trying to repay me for my unkindness. Perhaps she thinks she's torturing me by unnerving me to the point in which I almost faint. If someone had have mentioned this to me yesterday, I would have readily agreed - emotional and physical torture. But it's not. It feels alien, different, but pleasant. I could get used to this. But only with her.  
  
I almost begin to relax into her kiss - until she realises this and decides to add more fuel to the ordeal. I start in shock - what is she doing with her tongue? What is she trying to do to me? This is not the same Sally Po I've known and respected since my mid-teens. Definantly not. I never knew she had a side to her like this, though I suppose I've never looked.  
  
She's trying to weaken me, make me surrender. And it's working. But weakness never felt so....so...good. I've never been so close to anyone before at all. I can feel her every movement, inhale her, taste her. My pulse is racing, my blood coursing through my veins. It's so boiling hot. So hot, I wonder if I'm scorching her.  
  
As abruptly as she began, she finishes. She pushes back against my chest and pulls her face away from mine. I can hear her rapid breathing. I can hear my own, too. I notice how her chest moves up and down and how her throat hollows with every breath she draws.  
  
Her expression no longer shows the thrill of accomplishment, but dawning remorse. "I'm sorry, Wufei. I got carried away. I should never have done that," she explains, hastily.  
  
I flounder for an answer. Nothing fit comes to mind.  
  
" I...just wanted to show you...why didn't you.....stop me?" Sally continues, now in a slightly subdued tone.  
  
Why hadn't I? For a start, she had me paralysed in sheer bewilderment. Though even if I had have felt in control, I doubt I'd have fought to break away from the warmth she was giving me. It was too....invigorating.  
  
" There aren't any more lessons, I suppose then," I murmur into her ear.  
  
She twitches, then a small, yet attractive grin spreads slowly across her features. She doesn't answer my question though. She just stands there, as if she's breathing me in.  
  
" Well how about I teach you something?" I suggest. " Something about me."  
  
She's totally in my control now. There's no point feeling triumphant about it - this is the way she wants it, I can tell. I gaze into her face. She's quiet now, like calm water after a storm. Her eyes are glimmering like aqua discs, smiling tenderly, forgivingly at me. I understand now, she has me right where she's wanted me all along. I've always been in need of trust and affection. I've needed her but I failed to understand that she needed me too. She needed someone and she chose me and I suppose that's the greatest honour of all.  
  
I guess now I have to teach her that I'm not the insolent, uncaring person I've made myself out to be. Though a strange notion creeps over me that she already knows. Deep down, I think she knows me, the real me. She knows who I am.  
  
I always wondered whether I'd feel guilty for this, for letting someone have me, know me, someone other than my own wife. My wife will forever remain a child, resting, free from the pains of adulthood. And through the eyes of a man, every time I look back on the memory of that young girl, I will long to protect her and cradle her, like a brother to his small sister, a father to his daughter. But I must take my own path. And this is the path life has taken me, to fight and to grow. And growth means change.  
  
So now here we are - Sally and I - standing close in our darkened office. Neither of us would have guessed just when this day would come, but looking back, it was so beautifully obvious. She holds me, fiddling with my ponytail, the way she did when I was younger. I'll always remember and cherish that time in my life, when I was the misguided kid and she was the mature, humouring teacher. But those times are no more. I'm different. She's different. Everything becomes different at some point, I realise. You can't cling to the past, the memories forever. But the nostalgia will always remain with you.  
  
I turn towards the window. The sky is even darker now. But still, I cannot see my colony. It does not exist, not even in my mind's eye. That home is gone. And the young boy who lived there is gone. But the man he became is standing here right now and he's finally learnt that his home, his comfort and his future lie only inches within his reach.  
  
*~ Fin ~*  
  
*cringes* I don't know what I think about this fic it may be VERY bad I just felt like pretending to be Wufei for a while as well....no-one really understands him....I don't either, I'm just pretending I do to make him feel better ^_^. *Pats Wu* sorry I put you through that Wu-chan! Hmmm, something tells me I need a life and fast! 


End file.
